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Wayne State names Stephen Lanier new vice president of research

Stephen Lanier has been approved by the Wayne State University Board of Governors as the new vice president of research, effective June 16. He replaces Hilary Ratner, who had held the position since July 2007.

Since 2006, Lanier has been the associate provost for research and professor of cell and molecular pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. He was also the chief scientific officer and chief institutional research officer at the school.

Lanier got his doctorate in pharmacology from the University of TennesseeCenter for Health Sciences and postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Lanier spent eight years at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital as a fellow, instructor and assistant professor.

Prior to accepting the positions at Medical University, Lanier was chair of the Department of Pharmacology at Louisiana State University HealthSciences Center in New Orleans.

Lanier has served on multiple review panels for the National Institutes ofHealth and other scientific panels, and has organized and chaired scientific conferences and been on the editorial boards of leading scientific journals.

“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Lanier to Wayne State. He brings a wealth of talent and experience to this position, including extensive experience in technology transfer,” said WSU President M. Roy Wilson in a news release. “His passion and drive will be critical as we work to grow our research enterprise and translate the results of university research into benefits for the public.”

“Wayne State University has a number of outstanding, internationally recognized research programs and is playing a critical role in the development of the local and regional community,” said Lanier. “The faculty, students and leadership at Wayne State University are very special, and I am greatly appreciative of the opportunity to contribute and serve as vice president for research.”

It was announced last September, a month after Wilson replaced Allan Gilmour as president, that Ratner would be stepping down from that position and, after a year’s sabbatical, take a new position at the school.

That position will combine research and program development at the school’s Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute with special projects for Wilson’s office.

Ratner was named VP of research after being on a research committee that was unsuccessful in recruiting someone from the outside.

Previous positions for Ratner, who has been at the school more than 32 years, include associate provost and dean of the graduate school.

State officials have been critical of the pace of technology transfer at Wayne State under Ratner’s tenure.

In February 2013, the Michigan Strategic Fund awarded WSU $100,000 to fund what was termed a gap assessment of the technology-transfer office.

The money was earmarked for consulting work, to help the school improve its processes, by Tom Daly, a veteran of tech transfer who has consulted with other universities and with Argonne National Laboratory, a research lab run for the U.S.Department of Energy by the University of Chicago.